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“They cannot simply sit again and anticipate habitat destruction to happen,” says Ecojustice lawyer Dan Cheater.
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Revealed Mar 07, 2024 • 3 minute learn
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Environmental teams are asking Ottawa to implement its guidelines on an Alberta coal website that has began constructing an underground take a look at mine with out fisheries permits that officers have mentioned are required.
“They’ll’t simply sit again and anticipate habitat destruction to happen,” mentioned Ecojustice lawyer Dan Cheater. “We’d wish to see them take motion.”
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Coalspur Mines is planning a big enlargement of its Vista thermal coal mine close to Hinton, Alta., which might make it the biggest thermal coal mine in North America. The corporate can be planning an underground take a look at mine on the location to find out the feasibility of subsurface mining.
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In 2020, then-federal Atmosphere minister Jonathan Wilkinson ordered a joint federal-provincial overview of each the enlargement and the take a look at mine. That overview collapsed final fall when the Supreme Court docket of Canada dominated Ottawa’s Impression Evaluation Act was unconstitutional.
However by then the Division of Fisheries and Oceans had reviewed plans for each initiatives and determined it required permits below two completely different items of laws.
“DFO indicated that the bodily actions would require a Fisheries Act authorization,” says the 2021 evaluation report from the Impression Evaluation Company of Canada.
“The bodily actions may additionally doubtlessly require the train of powers … reminiscent of a Species at Danger Act allow for impacts to Athabasca rainbow trout or different species in danger.”
The division has been in touch with Coalspur however has not begun an investigation, mentioned Fisheries spokesman Robert Rombouts.
“The corporate is obliged to adjust to the acts and failure to conform could result in enforcement motion,” he mentioned in an e-mail.
In the meantime, work on the underground mine has begun.
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“The corporate began building work, however it’s restricted to the underground portion of the mine,” mentioned an e-mail from Renato Gandia, spokesman for the Alberta Power Regulator.
“Coalspur has not commenced mining actions at Vista Take a look at Underground Mine. As of Dec. 31, 2023, no coal has been mined on the underground mine and the portal has not been constructed.”
The corporate has acquired all vital provincial permits for the take a look at mine. Coalspur has argued that as a result of the take a look at mine doesn’t increase the mine’s general footprint, no extra permits are required.
“The (take a look at mine) merely represents another mining technique throughout the current and accredited allow boundary,” says its challenge description. “The (take a look at mine) doesn’t characterize extra disturbance past the boundaries of the prevailing Section I allow space.”
Officers from Coalspur didn’t reply to an interview request.
Federal officers discovered a number of causes for concern, together with attainable modifications to close by streams from dewatering of the underground mine and impacts of underground mining on groundwater.
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“The (take a look at mine) contains mining beneath tributaries of McPherson Creek,” says the evaluation company’s evaluation. “The processing and waste administration related to the bodily exercise even have the potential to adversely have an effect on crucial habitat, because of the location of tributaries inside and surrounding the … lease space inside which the (take a look at mine) is situated.”
Space waterways are habitat for the endangered Athabasca rainbow trout and the bull trout, Alberta’s provincial fish.
Ecojustice, performing for 2 native environmental teams, has written two letters to the federal Fisheries division asking for it to implement the foundations earlier than injury is completed.
“We all know what’s going to occur as soon as work has began on each the underground mine and this future enlargement,” Cheater mentioned. “Division of Fisheries and Oceans has confirmed what the anticipated impacts are.
“Regardless, Coalspur is forging forward.”
A revamped environmental evaluation act is anticipated this spring, with draft laws on coal mine effluent within the fall, Atmosphere Canada spokeswoman Kaitlin Energy mentioned in an e-mail.
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“It’s anticipated that Vista coal mine, if it strikes ahead, can be topic to those laws,” she wrote.
“No matter whether or not the Vista Coal Underground Mine Mission and Vista Mine Section II Enlargement Mission in Alberta endure a federal affect evaluation, they need to adjust to all related federal statutes. As such, they might require federal permits or authorizations.”
Cheater mentioned firms shouldn’t have the ability to benefit from a synthetic hole in environmental laws whereas Ottawa rejigs it.
“We’re in an interim interval the place initiatives like this and doubtlessly others usually are not going to be topic to an environmental evaluation. However that doesn’t imply the federal authorities can sidestep its obligations to guard the setting.”
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